Belinda Stronach has jumped ship to the Liberals, abandoning the Conservatives at a crucial moment:
top member of Canada’s opposition Conservatives unexpectedly defected to the ruling Liberals on Tuesday, giving the minority government of Prime Minister Paul Martin a better chance of surviving a crucial budget vote this week.
Belinda Stronach, a leading light in the Conservative Party, joined Martin’s cabinet as the minister of human resources and will vote with the government on the budget on Thursday. If Martin loses, an election will be called.
Stronach, who ran for the Conservative Party leadership but lost to Stephen Harper in a landslide, certainly had some ideological differences with the rest of her party. She supported gay marriage in a party firmly opposed. She supported more liberal social policies in general. She claimed that the Tories don’t understand middle Canada – and she has a point there. In fact, she had represented the hope that the Tories would move closer to the middle, but her hopes seem to be dashed now.
But the timing of this switch was no coincidence. Stronach saw an opportunity (the budget vote), named her price (a cabinet posting), and made the leap at a time when she had the most to gain. The current math has the smart money on the Liberals winning the budget vote now, thanks to Belinda’s defection. After all, she in effect is adding two votes to the Liberal side of the fence, by switching her vote against to a vote for.
Will Stronach’s constituents support her decision and re-elect her? Or will they view her as a disloyal turncoat?
More importantly, will people still describe her as “Canada’s answer to Ann Coulter”? (She never was in the first place, but that’s besides the point).
What’s the Quebec reaction to this? More evidence of Liberal corruption? Will this give more strength to the seperatists?
I’m sure that the constituents that put their faith in her and gave her their vote, will be ecstatic that she has now chosen (without consulting her constituents)to join the Amoral and Corrupt Government Party. She can put that ‘saving Canada’ crap where the sun never shines.
DinV says: “she can put that ‘saving Canbada’ crap where the SUN NEVER SHINES”.
I can’t, for the life of me, understand why you’d ever say that.
Do you mean that she should move to Vancouver…….
NOooo…
Hey! We’ve got Hedy Fry; that’s our quota for **%#$@*(*&!